suprise! its a new blog...

Well well well- its been a long time now, hasn’t it?

Just to catch up-

I got back from memphis- found out a passed all my classes and even did better than I expected in a couple and from then on out my break was all gravy…

I basically spent my days up until Christmas doing nothing around the house, swimming, and walking with the parents and eventually Todd when he got back- I tried to cram in as much Josh and Jesse time as was possible before we left for our trip

My immediate family and my Maternal grandparents packed up on the 24^th and drove to Gatlinburg, TN for 4 days and 3 nights of Burka family fun. We had a great cabin and we even got snowed in so there was really no other option but to hang out and relax… if we watched less than 6 movies I’d be surprised… i think it all went really well. We actually had some snow and ice to deal with the morning that we had to leave but we made it down in one piece.

After that it was really a blur- Josh and Jesse went on a trip to stupid Colorado (I mean… who would want to go to Colorado?!) and todd had to go back to work…all my pharmacy friends were either out of town or out of the country (Chun)… so you might say that I was in a relative state of core-friend/peer-less-ness for about 4 days or so (including my birthday)- but that’s not to say I had a BAD time (the consideration given to my birthday was perfectly acceptable by those I shared it with and I’m not complaining about that at all)…I just mean it was an uneventful 4 days and I did kind of miss the company of peers… usually I’ve at least got Todd to bounce ideas off of at 2am or go walk around Kroger/Walmart with me after MJ has shut down for the night, but he’s already moved on to grown-up land… but its cool… I’m back in M-town (a good 5ish days before any of my roommates)… I did either swim 1.5 miles or walk 3 miles every single day over break (minus the time in Gatlinburg)- a habit I’ve kept to this very day- actually tonight I walked the first half and jogged the last 1.5 with relative ease- I guess all the swimming kind of helps. I think I could probably get back to jogging here this semester (between swimming days that is)… which pretty much makes me really happy. Yesterday I swam 55 laps [1.5 miles] (it’s a yard pool here in Memphis, vs a Meter pool in Nashville- you do the math) straight- without stopping once- and I felt pretty good about that… didn’t I set that as a goal a few months ago on this blog? I think I did… oh well… well yeah… I can do that now.

Actually one my teachers was there (in the lane next to me actually)… and actually I say teacher but he’s really a full time Infectious Disease specialist/ clinical pharmacist - one of only 2 in the state of Tennessee- who does a few lectures in the spring … this guy has a brain the size of a… well.. something really big… he is easily the most intimidating lecturer we had. I was already on lap 10 and cruising and his first 5 laps he pulled ahead of me half a lap but then he slowed down to his regular pace and we stayed even all the way to the end- I think he did about 40 laps cause I still had about 5 more when he got out… so I felt good about that…

i've recently got some funny fortunes (which yes- i know dont really mean anything, but they make for a good story) from the Vietnamese place down the street—about 3 days before finals I got this one that said “winds of change will blow in your life in the next month”… which I found kind of scary because they didn’t tell me exactly what KIND of winds were coming my way- i certainly hoped not the bad kind… but my exams went well, and my grades turned out fine, so I’m guessing they weren’t really the bad kind? I had all but forgotten about it until yesterday when I went and had some Delicious seafood Pho (really good stuff) and on my way out, I cracked open the fortune cookie and it said “Something wonderful is about to happen to you”… … I kind of looked around… nope… nobody watching me… hmmm… it got me thinking though… what could possibly happen? I don't play the lottery, come to think of it there’s really nothing I could win that would be ‘wonderful’… I got in my car and drove to the hope depot- I was walking up to the door… “maybe I’ll be like the 1 millionth customer or something!”… I walked in… nothing… hmmm… I got what I came for and came back home… I got to thinking and really, I can’t even imagine what kind of thing could even happen to me- even if I had some kind of brilliant stroke of luck… I got to thinking some more and I came to the conclusion that I already was really lucky and that I have everything I could ever want right now… I’ve got a good looking future, and another solid 14 months of hanging out with my pharmacy friends… I’ve got every little gadget I could really ever desire, a ton of clothes, a nice car, great friends, a loving family, more great things in my life than i could even list...I’d say ‘something wonderful’ has already happened over the course of several years and that little cookie made me stop and take inventory and realize how blessed I am in every little way. I don't need anything else wonderful to happen to me because I think things are already going pretty wonderfully if I do say so myself… I don't think I’d change anything.